


Trying to Get Back In

by jjtaylor



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-27
Updated: 2010-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You simply go out and shut the door without thinking. And when you look back at what you've done<br/>it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trying to Get Back In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phineasjones](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=phineasjones).



> Thanks to romanticalgirl for beta. The stanzas make up Raymond Carver's poem "Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In." This story was originally posted on October 7th, 2005.

1.  
_You simply go out and shut the door  
without thinking. And when you look back  
at what you've done  
it's too late. If this sounds  
like the story of a life, okay._

Sirius is in Fiji. He walks on the beach in the early mornings, while wizard and Muggle tourists alike are all still asleep. He watches the sunrise and lets the sand spill from his hand like an hourglass and even though he thought he'd never feel any of this again, it doesn't feel as good as he imagined. Being free means that his worst memories no longer haunt his every moment, but it doesn't make them go away. His remorse follows him around like a ghost.

Sirius doesn't know how it's possible that thirteen years of his life is gone. He doesn't know how it's possible he has a fourteen-year old godson. Last he checked, he was that young and with Moony and they were playing Quidditch on the weekends and pranking their friends and sleeping in. And then there was war. And death. And now Sirius is old, and his bones ache, and there are lines around his mouth and eyes that make him look like his father.

He listens to the waves and wades into the water up to his calves, rolling up his pants over his knees, and he wishes he could have known the consequences of every awful thing he did before he did it. But Sirius knows himself well enough to know he'd still do it all again, exactly the same way. All the mistakes. All the horrible mistakes. Sirius knows there are some things about yourself that you just can't change.

  
2.  
_It was raining. The neighbors who had   
a key were away. I tried and tried   
the lower windows. Stared  
inside at the sofa, plants, the table  
and chairs, the stereo setup.   
My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me  
on the glass-topped table, and my heart   
went out to them. I said, Hello, friends,  
or something like that. After all,   
this wasn't so bad._

Sirius is in Hogsmeade. There's fog and everything's grey and it makes it easier to move about under a big black dog's coat. Easier not to be spotted. Easier not to feel the damp. Easier to be a dog and not a man when he re-enters the village he used to come to for dinner and drinks at the pub and shopping and snowball fights in the street.

He tries the windows of a small cottage whose inhabitants are apparently out for dinner or drinks at the pub or shopping. He sees the pot of tea on their countertop and it reminds him of Remus. He sees the pictures on their wall that make him think, unwelcome, about his parents and the portraits that lined his family home. Better, then, to think of the Potters and the way they hung their pictures of James on the wall above the stairs, and how James would threaten to push Sirius over the banister if Sirius made fun of him one more time.

The cottage is full of objects that Sirius' fingers know, and long to touch. Juice glasses and thick carpeting and fresh rolls of parchment. He remembers his leather jacket, thin paper fags, cotton towels.

Sirius cannot get in.

  
3.  
_Worse things had happened. This   
was even a little funny. I found the ladder.  
Took that and leaned it against the house.   
Then climbed in the rain to the deck,  
swung myself over the railing   
and tried the door. Which was locked,   
of course. But I looked in just the same   
at my desk, some papers, and my chair._

The floor of the cave is cold, the air is stale, and Sirius is hungry, but he keeps telling himself that he's been worse. He tucks his hands into his ragged sleeves.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are coming to visit and Sirius has the bizarre thought that he ought to clean up the cave, clean himself up. His hair is wild and he's dirty no matter how many times he washes up in the rain. There are bones all over the cave floor and sometime Sirius thinks - but, no, they are only the remains of Buckbeak's dinner.

He smooths Buckbeak's feathers as he kicks a few stray stones off to the side. He could have had a kneazle, he thinks. If he'd had a flat. If things had been different. He could have had a pet, and fed it table scraps and had it sit in his lap.

He's not sure why the idea makes his chest feel hollowed out. He settles against Buckbeak's side, at the far end of the cave to get away from the chill. He imagines the warming spell he could use, the fire he could create and conceal, if only he had a wand.

  
4.  
_This was the window on the other side   
of the desk where I'd raise my eyes   
and stare out when I sat at that desk.  
This is not like downstairs, I thought.   
This is something else.   
And it was something to look in like that, unseen,  
from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there._

He sticks his head in the fire of the Gryffindor Common Room at midnight and sees Harry's face smiling back at him. His eyes fall on the school books. The squashy arm chairs. He was just there last year, standing almost where Harry is now, but he didn't see a single thing except for rage and the trail of Pettigrew. But now, when he looks around at the Common Room, there are memories, like a wavering reflection on the water. The four of them sitting on the floor, pouring over Transfigurations text books that were too advanced for them. Sneaking out on full moon nights. Pettigrew, before they lost him, when they thought he was their friend. Remus' smile. James, young and alive

Sirius knows that James was always better than him. James would never let a prank get out of hand. James would never hurt his friends, never need to apologize. James would never let anyone die.

Sirius should have seen the darkness in Pettigrew, should have recognized it from what he saw in himself. He should have protected James and Lily. Should have died instead of them.

Harry says his name and the only thing Sirius sees anymore is his godson.

  
5.  
_I don't even think I can talk about it.  
I brought my face close to the glass   
and imagined myself inside,   
sitting at the desk. Looking up   
from my work now and again.  
Thinking about some other place   
and some other time.   
The people I had loved then._

He stands at the edge of the field that used to be a house. The grief is indescribable, and he thinks perhaps he shouldn't have come to Godric's Hollow. Ever.

James dead. Lily dead. Harry orphaned and with this burden, this curse, this weight of loss. Because of him. Because he wasn't smart enough, strong enough. Because he just didn't have any hope left then, for life, for the possibility of happiness. All he saw was his own guilt, and he thought if he could destroy Pettigrew, maybe some of it, some small part, would wash away.

This wasn't James and Lily's home. This was a hiding place and it didn't hide them near enough.

He thinks about his old life because he has no life now, does not believe he actually has a chance for a new one. No one ever thinks they'll get a second life where they can look back on the first, and it's torture, to see his faults, all laid bare. His mistakes cost him everything, everyone he loved.

He thinks about Remus because he thought about Remus back then, too. He didn't know how to love. All he had were the three boys that made up his life. One betrayed them all, one is dead, and one – one embraced him twelve years later, stood beside him and called him a friend. He wasn't sure he had the right to ask for anything more than that. He certainly didn't deserve it.

  
6.  
_I stood there for a minute in the rain.   
Considering myself to be the luckiest of men.   
Even though a wave of grief passed through me.  
Even though I felt violently ashamed   
of the injury I'd done back then.   
I bashed that beautiful window.   
And stepped back in._

The tournament is over and Harry is safe. Harry has seen death, but he is safe. And Sirius is a messenger now. Bring the old crowd back together. It seems fitting, since all Sirius knows anymore is the old way.

He watches Remus in silhouette, bent over a book and a cup of tea. Sirius has seen this sight a thousand times and it has never been more beautiful than it is now, standing outside of the warm glow of Remus' cottage, this picture of perfection framed by the window, the dirt smears on the outside of the pane, the cobwebs damp with dew and sparkling.

He thinks of how he suspected Remus. How Remus hated him. How he hated himself and his ugly, fractured heart, his broken mind.

He thinks of what he could have had. Shaking Remus awake, having Harry over for dinner, birthday presents, and toast crumbs and Remus' smile just for him. So perfect, so much more perfect now that he was on the outside, not ruining everything.

Except he couldn't stay away. He wanted to touch his life, feel its warmth. He wanted to have it back. Just for a moment.

Sirius taps on the window. Remus looks up.


End file.
